WILLIAM J. McGEE is the Aviation Adviser for Consumer Reports. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Consumer Reports Travel Letter and as an aviation investigative reporter for Consumer Reports, and has been with the organization for 20 years. He has represented Consumer Reports as an advocate for travelers, testifying numerous times before Congress and serving for one year as the lone consumer advocate on DOT Secretary Raymond LaHood’s Future of Aviation Advisory Committee.

McGee wrote the monthly “Behind the Screen” travel column for USA Today for 16 years. His journalism has received numerous awards and has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Condé Nast Traveler, Money, Yahoo.com, CNN.com, FoxNews.com, DailyBeast.com, HuffingtonPost.com, and dozens of other publications. He has been interviewed on aviation and travel issues by hundreds of major broadcast and print media outlets worldwide, including CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, BBC, and NPR’s Fresh Air.

Prior to becoming a journalist and consumer advocate, McGee worked in airline ground operations and flight operations management for seven years, at airports in the United States and 25 countries worldwide. He is an FAA- licensed aircraft dispatcher and was an Operations System Control Duty Manager for the Pan Am Shuttle. In addition, he served eight years in the U.S. Air Force Auxiliary as a Flight Release Officer and Inflight Scanner.

He is the author of two books: Half the Child and Attention All Passengers, an exposé of the airline industry that was lauded by Ralph Nader and Capt. “Sully” Sullenberger. McGee received a BA from Hofstra University and an MFA from Columbia University. He has taught and lectured for many years at Hofstra University, Vaughn College of Aeronautics, the National University of Ireland/Galway, and Long Island University.